Exploring the Old Testament in Asia: Evangelical Perspectives

By Langham Global Library

Exploring the Old Testament in Asia is the first evangelical Old Testament textbook written both from and for an Asian cultural context. Rooted in the theological conviction that God still speaks through the Old Testament in all its fullness, the twelve essays in this book address key theological issues pertinent to the diverse cultures and contexts of Asia. Touching on topics from polytheism and kinship bonds to Scripture translation and the biblical conception of wisdom, the writers position themselves in conversation with Asia’s rich spiritual, cultural, and literary heritage. The result is a theological contribution that is both contextually relevant and biblically faithful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Langham Global Library
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839737596

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Amidst widespread approaches to the Bible from the perspectives of the margins in Asia, it is refreshing to read an exploration of the Old Testament by Asian evangelical scholars who delve into both the text and the Asian context. In interpreting the Old Testament with utmost sincerity and sensibly demonstrating its applicability to complex Asian contexts, the contributors have engaged in an authentic Asian reading of the Old Testament.

Chubamongba Ao, DTh

Principal,

Everest Theological Institute, Nepal

I enthusiastically commend this fine collection of essays on the theology of the Old Testament in Asian contexts. How good, as a Westerner who lived in Asia for some years, to see the mature contributions in this book. How helpful to see the deep engagement of the Old Testament with contemporary Asian cultures. In our global village, this book is invaluable wherever in this village we live. My thanks to the editors and contributors for feeding and stimulating the global church in such helpful, relevant, and missional ways.

Paul Barker, PhD

Bishop, Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Australia

Visiting Lecturer in Old Testament,

Myanmar Graduate School of Theology

This is the volume for which I have been looking for a very long time. It contains the finest collection of evangelical studies in First Testament theology by Asians for Asians that I have encountered. Many of the individual essays are the best on the subject that I have read. This volume aims primarily to advance the kingdom of our Lord in a significant portion of the Majority World. However, if it were required reading in biblical theology and exegesis courses in Western institutions, we might awaken to the myopic and alien presuppositions that plague our readings of Scripture and recognize some unfortunate missiological and ecclesiological consequences for having exported these predispositions abroad.

Daniel Block, DPhil

Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament,

Wheaton College, Illinois, USA

As the globalization of Christianity continues, so does the need for contextual theology, especially from an evangelical perspective. Focusing on the interpretation and application of the Old Testament in diverse Asian contexts, the articles in this volume repeatedly show the varied interfaces between the Bible and culture, as well as how to engage in thoughtful, constructive dialogue. Not only Asian Christians but also all who love the global church will benefit greatly from this book.

Kevin Chen, PhD

Associate Professor of Old Testament,

Christian Witness Theological Seminary, California, USA

Exploring the Old Testament in Asia is a rare find. An excellent scholarly yet practical book, offering Old Testament theology from the Asian context for Asian communities, and written mainly by Asian authors. There is a rich and comprehensive application of biblical perspectives, covering a wide range of topics relevant to the Asian context, including our views on Yahweh and other gods; gender relations; our understanding of leadership, authority, and power; comparisons between Confucius’s concept of spirituality and biblical worship; our understanding of blessings including wealth and healing; and more. I fully agree with the contributors to the book that God still speaks today through the Old Testament in all its fullness through all cultures, including the Asian context. I highly recommend this book to all who want to dig deeper into the Old Testament to understand how it may apply to the Asian context today, helping us to powerfully communicate our Christian faith in diverse contexts.

Rev. Dr. Patrick Fung

General Director,

OMF International

This is a much-needed book for understanding the Old Testament in modern-day Asia, where the maturing Asian church needs a contextualized lens through which to apprehend the marvelous and timeless truths of God’s first written revelation to humanity. A special strength is the many chapters’ engagement with specific religious traditions in specific countries, like India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, and more. It will certainly enrich the church in Asia, but it should be read in the West as well!

David M. Howard, Jr., PhD

Professor of Old Testament,

Bethlehem College and Seminary, Minnesota, USA

Professor Emeritus of Old Testament,

Bethel Seminary, Minnesota, USA

In 2008 I published my book Why Don’t We Read the Book that Christ Read? in Arabic to help Arab readers understand and appreciate the Old Testament. It has always been my dream to see similar (and better) books written in various contexts by local authors. The publication of this book is a dream becoming a reality! It is an indispensable read for anyone who aims to dig deep theologically and biblically into Asian issues. I am delighted to see several Langham graduates contributing to this volume, thus fulfilling John R. W. Stott’s vision for relevant contextual roots of the biblical truth.

Rev. Riad Kassis, PhD

International Director,

Langham Scholars Ministry

How is the Old Testament relevant to contemporary Asian contexts and issues? Exploring the Old Testament in Asia: Evangelical Perspectives offers an informative, insightful, and thought-provoking response for interested church leaders, pastors, missionaries, and scholars. In twelve essays, Asian biblical scholars bridge the gap well with such topics as: Old Testament law and ethics, and Asian parallels; Old Testament wisdom compared with Confucian wisdom; and gift-giving and bribery in Asian contexts. These stimulating essays deliver balanced discussions between the Old Testament and Asian contexts. They demonstrate an accurate understanding of Asian issues in their specific contexts, sound exegetical and theological analysis of parallel Old Testament contexts and passages, and careful evaluation of Asian issues with relevant Old Testament beliefs, values, and practices.

Roy Kong Low, PhD

President,

Grace Biblical Seminary, Hong Kong

A wide-ranging collection of essays which consistently draws thought-provoking parallels between the Old Testament and major aspects of Asian culture and religion. These essays are certainly not the last word on their respective subjects – many of them could have been expanded to book-length studies – but they are a welcome word nonetheless, opening up many areas for further research. I wish a book like this had been available twenty-four years ago, when I, a Westerner, first came to Singapore to teach the Old Testament.

Philip Satterthwaite, PhD

Lecturer Emeritus,

Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Singapore

This is a creative book heralding Asian evangelical biblical scholarship at its best with key scholars who not only take the Hebrew Bible seriously, but also resolve difficult, challenging, and relevant issues. The book will definitely be the best resource for thinking Christians in Asia as well as global scholarly communities.

Joseph Shao, PhD President Emeritus, Biblical Seminary of the Philippines

4th General Secretary, Asia Theological Association

In Exploring the Old Testament in Asia: Evangelical Perspectives, the contributors decenter from the Eurocentric perspective and recenter the narrative of Christianity’s rootedness in Asia (p. 2) in order to provide the basis for theology and ministry. They bring the world of the Old Testament and the world of Asia together to address issues pertaining to diverse Asian contexts such as the challenge of monotheism, the dynamics of gender differences, Confucius spirituality, kinship bonds, etc. In so doing, the word becomes flesh. I highly recommend this book for all who are passionate about the Scripture and its relevance to all people.

Chloe T. Sun, PhD

Professor of Old Testament,

Logos Evangelical Seminary, California, USA

Many have studied the Old Testament for the enrichment of the church, but most of this work has been done in the context of Europe and North America. This excellent collection of essays by scholars across Asia beautifully highlights the relevance of the Old Testament for the church today, showing how these readings can come to life in new ways in Asian contexts. Asian readers will feel at home in many of these discussions, and others across the world will be able to read the Old Testament in new ways that enliven their relationship with the God of the Bible.

Charlie Trimm, PhD

Associate Professor of Old Testament,

Biola University, California, USA

Director,

Every Voice: A Center for Kingdom Diversity in Christian Theological Education

I highly recommend Exploring the Old Testament in Asia. The authors intentionally open the strange world of the Old Testament by introducing Asian readers to familiar cultural issues. The authors are Asians or have lived in Asia. They critically examine the Old Testament from Asian perspectives. Each chapter bridges the Asian world with the world of the Old Testament. As a Western Christian with intercultural interests, I found the essays fascinating. They encourage all readers, Western and non-Western, to think critically of assumptions they bring to the Old Testament.

Willem VanGemeren, PhD

Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Semitic Languages,

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Illinois, USA

Exploring the Old Testament in Asia: Evangelical Perspectives is an excellent book to understand the Old Testament from an Asian evangelical perspective. While we Asians are very grateful to our overwhelmingly European saints for bringing the Scriptures to us (though there were some who came from Asia and other continents), the illustrations and metaphors they used to explain and teach the Scriptures came from their culture and community – and that made the word of God geographically distant for most of us.

Junias Venugopal, PhD

Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Evangelism & Leadership,

A. Duane Litfin School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership,

Wheaton College, Illinois, USA

The Asian theological community comes here into its own and explores what Scripture says to Asian Christian communities. Scholars from different ethnic and national backgrounds explore Old Testament themes in dialogue with pertinent concerns that arise from within their own culture and society, such as polytheism, syncretism, relationships, poverty, leadership, and more. This textbook confirms that the evangelical Asian church is perfectly capable of self-theologizing. The authors provide not only well-researched models of contextual readings but also contribute fresh insights into Scripture that are of importance to the global church.

Michael Widmer, PhD

Lecturer,

Theological Seminary Chrischona, Switzerland

Series Editor: Stephen T. Pardue

The Foundations in Asian Christian Thought series offers accessible and innovative introductions to key topics that are biblically rooted, contextually engaged, and theologically rich. In each volume, a mixture of seasoned and rising scholars from all over Asia with a shared commitment to genuinely contextual reflection and the primary authority of Scripture introduce readers to major issues, identifying the key contributions of Asian Christians to the global theological conversation. In addition to introducing readers to the dynamic landscape of Asian Christian thought, each book also includes constructive proposals regarding how Christians can wisely advance the development of Asian biblical and theological reflection.

TITLES IN THE SERIES

Asian Christian Theology

2019 | 9781783686438

Asian Christian Ethics

2022 | 9781839730740

Exploring the Old Testament in Asia

2022 | 9781839732799

Exploring the New Testament in Asia

2023 | 9781839737114

Exploring the Old Testament in Asia

Evangelical Perspectives

Jerry Hwang and Angukali Rotokha

© 2022 by Jerry Hwang and Angukali Rotokha

Published 2022 by Langham Global Library

An imprint of Langham Publishing

www.langhampublishing.org

Langham Publishing and its imprints are a ministry of Langham Partnership

Langham Partnership

PO Box 296, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 9WZ, UK

www.langham.org

Published in partnership with Asia Theological Association

ATA

QCC PO Box 1454 – 1154, Manila, Philippines

www.atasia.com

ISBNs:

978-1-83973-279-9 Print

978-1-83973-759-6 ePub

978-1-83973-760-2 Mobi

978-1-83973-761-9 PDF

Jerry Hwang and Angukali Rotokha hereby assert their moral right to be identified as the Author of the General Editor’s part in the Work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83973-279-9

Cover & Book Design: projectluz.com

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Contents

Cover

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

References

Chapter 1 The Hebrew Bible and Translation as Scripture

1. The Hebrew Bible as Scripture to All Humanity

2. Translation as Scripture

Conclusion

References

Chapter 2 Yahweh and Other Gods

1. Worship of One Supreme God

2. The Historical Development of Yahwism

3. Monotheism in Practice

Conclusion

References

Chapter 3 Men, Women, and God

1. Act 2: Relationships in Paradise Lost

2. Act 1: Relationships in Paradise

3. Act 3: Relationships in Paradise Regained

Conclusion

References

Chapter 4 Israel, The Nations, and the Missio Dei

1. Israel’s Calling to Bless the Nations

2. The Missio Dei as Blessing or Destroying the Nations?

3. The Missio Dei and Imperialism in the Prophecy of Jeremiah

Conclusion

References

Chapter 5 Leadership, Power, and Authority

1. A Community Under the Rule of Yahweh

2. Political Institutions in the OT

3. The Prophets

4. Priesthood and Worship

5. The Sage

6. Some Reflections

References

Chapter 6 Old Testament Law and Ethics

1. Brief Overview of the OT Law

2. The Deuteronomic Law

3. The Deuteronomic Law and Ethics

Conclusion

References

Chapter 7 Taiwanese Christian Li

1. Taiwanese Spiritual Worldview and Ritual Life: The Confucian Li

2. The Supremacy of Yahweh and his Worship-Worthiness

3. Worshipers’ Worship Rituals Toward Yahweh

4. Contemporary Taiwanese Misunderstandings of Christian Worship Rituals

Conclusion

References

Chapter 8 Education, Learning, and Wisdom

1. Wisdom and Pedagogy

2. Blessedness in Biblical Wisdom

3. Confucian Wisdom and The Analects

4. Wisdom’s Contribution to Chinese and Asian Contexts

Conclusion

References

Chapter 9 Old Testament Narratives

1. History, Historiography, and Historicity

2. Fiction

3. Ideology in Biblical Studies

4. Modern Understandings of Historiography

5. Ancient Understanding of Historiography

6. Ancient Indian Historiography

7. Reflections

Conclusion

References

Chapter 10 Exodus and Liberation

1. Background to the Naga People in India: Nationalism and Christianity

2. Present Conundrum: What Can Go Wrong?

Conclusion

References

Chapter 11 Kinship, Patronage, and Corruption

1. Kinship

2. Patronage

3. Corruption

References

Chapter 12 Prosperity Theology in Asia

1. An Overview of Prosperity Theology in Asia

2. Prosperity and Suffering in Biblical Perspective

3. Prayer and Healing in Biblical Perspective

Conclusion

References

Contributors

About Asia Theological Association

About Langham Partnership

Endnotes

Index

Foreword

What difference would it make in India if some of the laws of Leviticus 19 were actual statute legislation in this country? That was a question I used to ask the class during a lecture course on the Pentateuch at the Union Biblical Seminary, Pune. I taught the Old Testament there between 1983–88. And, as a Westerner from urban Britain, it was a constantly fascinating and challenging mental experience to be studying and teaching the Bible (especially the Old Testament) in a very different cultural and religious environment. I had so much to learn!

Sometimes the hermeneutical distance was very short. It seemed that Baal was alive and well in India, with the ambient polytheism, the sexualized deities, the social oppression, and sexual degradation that accompanied some forms of idolatry – very much as Hosea would have recognized. Amos too would have had strident words for the rampant bribery and corruption – not only in the secular courts and public life, but endemic within the churches and denominations as well. Moses would have wondered how the laws he gave to Israel about mitigating and redressing poverty, dealing systemically with debt so that it did not enslave all future generations, could transform the lives of bonded millions in countries like India.

The response to my question in class, after some silent perusal of the chapter, would often be somewhat embarrassed laughter. These laws from before 1,000 BCE would impact modern India transformatively, as they demand: generosity to the landless (vv. 9–10); fair and prompt payment of wages to day-laborers (v. 13); integrity in the judicial system (v. 15); diligence, not negligence, for other peoples’ lives (v. 16b); conservation practices in agriculture (vv. 23–25); ban on the occult (v. 26b, 31); ban on giving daughters into religious prostitution (v. 29); fairness and legal equality for all ethnic groups (vv. 33–34); honesty in the commercial marketplace (vv. 35–36). Who says the Bible is out-of-date?

Sometimes comparisons were ironic. Having studied the Israelite practice of a marriage gift being given by the groom’s family to the bride’s father and having rejected the common interpretation of the word mohar as bride-price, with the implication that the Israelite wife was simply purchased property, it was (a little) amusing to imagine that the reverse direction in India, where a girl’s parents must pay vast amounts to the boy’s parents could even remotely be interpreted as the husband being bought, or treated, as the wife’s property!

Sometimes it called for deeper thought as the tectonic plates of strong ethical paradigms and assumptions clashed. As a Western academic, I prided myself on the highest standards and demands of integrity and honesty (and I still would, just to reassure). Cheating in exams or plagiarism in assignments were just about top of the list of ethical negatives, reprimands, and disqualification. What then could I say to the student in tears in my office, whom I had failed for some such fault in a way that would mean he could not graduate, pleading with me to reconsider and let him pass since, he said, he simply could not go back to his parents, having failed them, let them down, betrayed their trust, and so on. It was not that he thought his dishonesty was OK – he knew it was sinful. But on his inner scale of ethical values, honesty came lower down than honoring his parents by succeeding in what they had paid and prayed for. Loyalty to his parents was, for him, a higher demand than honesty in his studies. Disloyalty would be a worse sin, in his eyes, than dishonesty.

So I found myself wrestling with the way cultural values and imperatives move ethical values (including biblical ones) around in terms of their relative priority on some sliding-scale of what is considered of first importance. Non-Western traditional cultures in general tend to be far more committed to family loyalty and kinship obligations than Western individualized cultures. Is that not a strongly biblical value that we in the West have eroded to our great cost? I found I could not excuse the student’s dishonesty as if it had not happened or didn’t matter, but at the same time I found myself wondering what I needed to learn from a young Asian lad in his agony about relative ethical values and on what biblical basis I would place one above another.

I have not had the privilege of living in another Asian country for the length of time we lived and worked in India, though I have visited many others for various forms of Christian ministry and teaching. So I have not personally wrestled with the kind of cultural, theological, and ethical issues such as those mentioned above in other cultures. But I have experienced much kindness, politeness, affection, and warm-hearted response in my visits to Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, the Philippines. And in most of these countries, people have honestly shared with me some of the ways the Christian faith and the interpretation of the Bible itself are intertwined with cultural, historical, linguistic, and ethical distinctives of their contexts.

It is so encouraging and welcome, therefore, to see this book exploring the Old Testament and the theological issues it raises through Asian eyes. Of course, Asians have been writing theology for thousands of years, ever since those ancient West Asians wrote all the books we now call the Bible itself. And indeed much of the theological writing of the early centuries of the Christian church was done by Asians (and Africans too, of course) in Syria, Lebanon, Arabia, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and on along the Silk Route to China itself. Vince Bantu’s recent book, A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity’s Global Identity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020), has the wonderful opening lines: "Christianity is and always has been a global religion. For this reason, it is important never to think of Christianity as becoming global" (p. 1). This symposium is a worthy and enriching contribution to the two millennia of global Christian theology – an exploration, rightly so-called, that invites other explorers to engage, comment, critique, and continue the journey together.

It is a privilege for Langham Partnership to walk alongside churches around the world, and in this instance specifically, to partner with ATA and Asian biblical scholars, including a pleasing number of Langham Scholars, in bringing this project to birth. May it be the firstborn of many more!

Christopher J. H. Wright

Global Ambassador and Ministry Director, Langham Partnership

July 2022

Acknowledgments

This Old Testament textbook from Asia and for Asia and beyond was conceived in its entirety, from planning to publication, during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, the two of us would like to give thanks to God, first and foremost, for the strength to design the book, recruit contributors, and assemble the whole even as we dealt with various challenges ourselves in health and ministry. Besides COVID-19 itself and the related difficulties which all our contributors faced, we would like to recognize the other scholars who had originally planned to pen essays for this volume but needed to withdraw due to sudden and massive upheaval in their home countries (at one point, one contributor was a refugee fleeing from war, while it was unclear if another contributor was even alive). Suffering is universal to the human experience, of course, but many scholars of religion have recognized that suffering is an especially prominent theme in the religio-cultural systems that are native to Asia. Not only this, but the lived reality for many Christian brothers and sisters in Asia is that of persecution and poverty, both of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

It is with these realities in mind that we dedicate this textbook to the victims of the pandemic in Asia, especially the bereaved families of Christian ministers who continued to visit the sick and minister to the grieving, even as their own lives ebbed away. We can only echo the words of the psalmist, Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants (Ps 116:15).

Jerry Hwang

Angukali Rotokha

May 2022

Abbreviations

Introduction

Angukali Rotokha and Jerry Hwang

The rapid growth of the evangelical church in Asia during the last century has found a parallel in the rising numbers of Asian Christians enrolling in seminaries to train for ministry. Theological education, however, has often not grown truly Asian roots at a pace comparable with the increase in Asian students with respect to providing resources written by Asians, asking questions relevant to Asians, and offering biblical perspectives on issues of concern to Asian communities. This dearth of contextual theology has meant that seminarians and thinking Christians in Asia are still reliant on Western resources, leaving them at a loss for how to read and apply Scripture faithfully in a manner that connects God’s authoritative word to the specific contexts and issues facing their communities.

Although Christianity originated in ancient Near East and is quite established in numerous parts of the Asian continent,[1] it is nonetheless still perceived as a Western religion in much of Asia. This perception of the Western-ness of the Christian faith is partly because Christianity arrived along with Western empires relatively late in the history of many Asian nations. Such an association between Christianity and Western colonialism has tended to overshadow Christianity’s ancient roots in Asia,[2] a reality often also reinforced by how Christian scholarship, textbooks, and resources used in Asian seminaries come largely from the West. Western-style theological education has certainly shaped and guided the Asian church in laudatory ways, but the maturing of the Asian evangelical church in recent decades has also revealed the limitations of Western scholarship in addressing the diverse concerns and interests of Asian Christian communities. Even in a globalizing world, the exposition of Scripture through Western lenses and cultural categories often struggles to engage with Asian societies outside the walls of the seminary, leaving theologically trained Asians with tools that are less than effective for their ministry work.

For Asians, what counts as religion is often synonymous with culture, due to the holism of Asian societies in which the usual dichotomies between sacred/secular, physical/spiritual, natural/supernatural, and earthly/heavenly are often blurred. Since the needs of Asian Christians differ from their Western brothers and sisters, theological education in and for Asia must connect Scripture with aspects of life that are not as commonly treated in Western evangelical scholarship. Among these areas are living as a religious minority, poverty, gender, syncretism, familial and societal relationships, superstition, violence, corruption, and others that this book seeks to examine. Silence from the Christian community about these lived realities in Asia leaves a vacuum that the cultures surrounding evangelical Asian Christians are ready to fill using beliefs and practices from their own environments. Further, such an approach not only fails to serve the Asian church, but also impoverishes the global church.

The presence of cultural pluralism in Asia means that the avenues for contextual application of biblical perspectives are also numerous. The Old Testament is particularly relevant in this regard, since many of its themes find special resonance among Asian communities. At the same time, bridges between the OT world and contemporary Asian lived contexts and experiences must be built cautiously in order to maintain the proper cultural and theological distance between ancient Israelites and modern Asians. To this end, then, this book explores how the world of the OT, which is both familiar to us and yet far removed in time and space, can speak today as God’s authoritative and contextual word. This approach seeks to recenter the narrative of Christianity’s rootedness in Asia and take steps towards providing Asian biblical reflections as the backbone of our theology and ministry.

Thus, Exploring the Old Testament in Asia examines traditional topics in OT theology, but does so for Asia and from Asian perspectives. Chapter 1 begins the book with Bayarjargal Garamtseren’s essay that considers how the Hebrew Scriptures become God’s word to those who are not descendants of Abraham, by highlighting the case of Bible translation for Mongolian Christians. He observes and contrasts Mongolia’s socialist evolutionary narrative, as well as its own traditional narratives, to the biblical creation narrative. In addition, the viability of new Bible translations as God’s word is rooted in God’s universal mission and self-revelation to ancient Israel in a language they understood.

Chapters 2 and 3 examine two fundamental relationships – between God and human beings, and between man and woman respectively. Koowon Kim’s essay on Yahweh and other gods speaks to Asia’s highly spiritual and supernatural contexts. By establishing points of contact between East Asia and the OT, Kim demonstrates how Asian Christians in polytheistic cultures can relate to ancient Israelites in their shared struggle to understand how to believe in Yahweh as the one God. The polytheism of the surrounding peoples was the cultural environment out of which Israel eventually came to the light of biblical monotheism. Havilah Dharamraj invites readers to reexamine the man-woman relationship by juxtaposing the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve with Hinduism’s cultural and religious understanding of gender relations in Ram and his wife Sita, as found in the Ramayana. Going across the biblical canon, she shows how the biblical understanding of gender differs from that of the Ramayana in offering a healing solution for the unhealthy state of the man-woman relationship.

In chapter 4, Jerry Hwang explores the theme of God’s universal mission and grapples with the OT’s apparent contradiction between God’s mission to bless the nations via Israel, and God’s dealings with the nations which often involved domination and violence, also via Israel. Since the history of Christianity in many Asian countries is entangled with the history of colonialism, it is necessary for Asian Christians to understand how the OT’s narrative of divine wrath fits within the missio Dei of God’s love and care to draw all nations to know him.

Annelle Sabanal’s essay in chapter 5 examines the institutions of leadership in the OT and observes similarities in leadership, authority, and power with Asian cultures. Drawing on the holistic worldview common to both the ancient Israelites and contemporary Asian communities, Sabanal demonstrates how the OT’s God-centered vision of leadership ought to shape our understanding, standards, and practices. She concludes with biblical reflections on the Filipino context in which the nature of political leadership is a perennial challenge for believers. In chapter 6, Mona Bias examines law and ethics in the OT by focusing on the theme of covenant. She draws particular attention to parallels between the beliefs and practices of ancient Israel and the Philippines. Such similarities mean that OT laws, which Christians often consider too specific or irrelevant, find parallels and resonance in some Asian communities. When these connections are highlighted well, Asian Christians can recover the relevance of the OT and create opportunities for deeper engagement with their communities.

The next two essays, chapters 7 and 8, use Confucian thought as conversation partners. Shirley Ho’s essay on worship uses the Confucian concept of Li to demonstrate how the Taiwanese spiritual worldview and ritual life provide the cognitive and experiential framework to understand the worship life and ritual practices of the OT, especially as seen in Leviticus and Psalms. Ho highlights the theological rationale behind OT worship rituals which can otherwise be perceived as mindless or repetitive. She also shines a spotlight on common misunderstandings regarding worship rituals that are prevalent in Asian churches, while offering correctives for the same. Elaine Goh examines the pedagogy of biblical wisdom and its goal of blessedness that is oriented to building character. Goh situates this discussion of biblical wisdom in the Asian context by bringing in Confucius’ Analects, a work that has shaped Asian ethics since ancient times and is complementary to biblical ethics. She concludes by suggesting how biblical wisdom can make distinctive contributions to Asian contexts.

Angukali Rotokha addresses the categories of history and historiography, with reference to OT narratives, in chapter 9. After providing a brief overview of the modern and ancient Near Eastern historiographies to highlight the differences between them, she brings in India’s historiographical enterprise as represented by the Mahabharata. This comparison allows for a greater level of cross-cultural objectivity on the issue of historicity in ancient texts, especially in the task of reassessing the historical value of the OT. In the following chapter, chapter 10, Rotokha also examines what it means to be God’s people in the context of a Christian community’s struggle for political independence. She investigates theopolitical issues of selective use and over-appropriation of the OT promises to the Israelites, and the use of violence while still professing Christ. She proposes that God’s promises to the Israelites in the OT are too specific to be indiscriminately appropriated for our use today, thereby requiring a shift from striving to be Israel-like to Christ-like.

Peter Lau’s essay in chapter 11 discusses how the presence and strength of kinship bonds in collectivist-dominant cultures, like ancient Israel was and Asian cultures today